Chapter 2 - The Whispering Windows
The rain in Brooklyn fell in greasy, sulfur-colored sheets, turning the asphalt outside Felicity’s fifth-floor studio into a dark mirror.
It was 2:15 a.m.
Felicity sat at her scarred oak table, surrounded by manila folders, highlighters, and cold takeout containers from the noodle shop on Atlantic Avenue. A legal pad in front of her was covered in her sharp, slanted cursive.
She tapped her pen against the name *Caelum Logistics*.
Knox Mercer had told her to beware of it. A typical defense maneuver: deflect guilt onto a rival, sow confusion, make the prosecutor chase phantoms. Yet Felicity had spent the last four hours digging through the state registry archives in Trenton.
Caelum Logistics had been founded in October 1999.
The date struck her like a slap. October 1999 was when her earliest, fractured memories began—the cold linoleum of the bus station in Elizabeth, the smell of burnt diesel fuel, the rough wool of the transit officer’s blanket.
*Jane Doe No. 7742.*
Felicity set her pen down and rubbed her temples. Her thumb pressed into her palm. She caught herself doing it, felt an inexplicable wave of sorrow wash over her, and pulled her hand back as if burned.
*Why did he look at me like that?*
In court, defendants glared with hatred, cowered in shame, or smiled with arrogance. Knox Mercer had done none of those things. He had looked at her the way an old man might look at a ghost he had prayed to see every night of his life.
A faint scuff sounded from the fire escape outside her window.
Felicity went rigid.
The sound was tiny—the ring of wet iron beneath a rubber sole. Her apartment was five stories up. There was no balcony, only the rickety black metal ladder that led to the gravel roof.
Slowly, without making a sound, Felicity slipped her hand into the drawer beneath her desk. Her fingers curled around the grip of an off-duty Glock 19. As an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting organized crime syndicates, she was licensed and trained to carry.
She flicked off the green desk lamp. Darkness flooded the room, relieved only by the pale amber sodium glow leaking through the slatted blinds.
Another sound: metal scraping gently against the window frame. Someone was jimmying the sash.
Felicity rose, keeping her back to the wall, leveling the weapon with both hands. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her breath remained steady. "Step away from the glass!" she called out, her voice hard as rebar. "I am armed, and the police have been alerted!"
It was a bluff; she hadn't called 911 yet.
The shadow outside paused. Then, instead of retreating, the figure shoved upward against the sash. The old lock sheared with a splintering crack.
A man dressed in dark tactical gear swung one leg over the sill, a silenced automatic pistol in his right hand. Behind him, another figure rose up on the fire escape.
Before Felicity could squeeze the trigger, a thunderous crash erupted from above.
A heavy boot slammed down onto the second man’s skull from the roof, shattering the iron grating of the ladder. A dark-clad shadow dropped like a falcon through the rain. A knife flashed once—a dull, muffled thud—and the man outside the window collapsed silently into the alley below.
The intruder inside Felicity’s room spun around in shock.
Before he could raise his weapon, two gloved hands reached through the open window frame, grabbed his tactical vest by the collar, and violently yanked him backward over the sill. The man let out a choked gasp as his head bounced off the cast-iron brickwork.
Felicity lunged forward, her gun raised. "Don't move!"
Through the streaming rain, she saw a large, broad-shouldered man standing on the wet fire escape. He wore an uncrewed black jacket, drenched in rainwater. He held the intruder pinned over the rail by the throat.
The man turned his face toward the window just enough for the streetlamp light to catch his profile.
It was Perry Shaw.
Behind Perry, stepping out from the shadows of the roof overhang, stood another figure. Rain ran off the brim of his coat.
Knox Mercer.
Their eyes locked through the broken glass and the slanting rain. Knox looked past the gun in Felicity's hands, past her badge hanging from a lanyard on the desk, looking only at her face—pale, terrified, and fiercely alive.
"Mercer?" Felicity whispered, her voice trembling despite herself. "What are you... what have you done?"
Knox did not answer. He stepped to the edge of the fire escape, looked down into the alleyway where two black SUVs were waiting with their doors open, and spoke to Perry.
"Clean it up," Knox said.
Then Knox looked back at Felicity. "Check the box behind the radiator in your hall closet, Rosalind."
The name hit her like an electric shock.
*Rosalind.*
May you like
Before she could scream, before she could pull the trigger or demand an explanation, Knox slipped back into the shadow of the brickwork, and both men vanished into the wet Brooklyn night.
***
